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The Steel Mirror

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John Emmett, a chemist who worked for the U.S. government during WWII, is enroute to a new job in California. When his car dies, he hitches a ride with a woman, Ann Nicholson, who may or may not have amnesia, who may or may not have murdered someone, and who may or may not be crazy.

222 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1948

41 people want to read

About the author

Donald Hamilton

101 books107 followers
Donald Hamilton was a U.S. writer of novels, short stories, and non-fiction about the outdoors. His novels consist mostly of paperback originals, principally spy fiction but also crime fiction and Westerns such as The Big Country. He is best known for his long-running Matt Helm series (1960-1993), which chronicles the adventures of an undercover counter-agent/assassin working for a secret American government agency.

Hamilton began his writing career in 1946, fiction magazines like Collier's Weekly and The Saturday Evening Post. His first novel Date With Darkness was published in 1947; over the next forty-six years he published a total of thirty-eight novels. Most of his early novels whether suspense, spy, and western published between 1954 and 1960, were typical paperback originals of the era: fast-moving tales in paperbacks with lurid covers. Several classic western movies, The Big Country and The Violent Men, were adapted from two of his western novels.

The Matt Helm series, published by Gold Medal Books, which began with Death of a Citizen in 1960 and ran for 27 books, ending in 1993 with The Damagers, was more substantial.

Helm, a wartime agent in a secret agency that specialized in the assassination of Nazis, is drawn back into a post-war world of espionage and assassination after fifteen years as a civilian. He narrates his adventures in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone with an occasional undertone of deadpan humor. He describes gunfights, knife fights, torture, and (off-stage) sexual conquests with a carefully maintained professional detachment, like a pathologist dictating an autopsy report or a police officer describing an investigation. Over the course of the series, this detachment comes to define Helm's character. He is a professional doing a job; the job is killing people.

Hamilton was a skilled outdoorsman and hunter who wrote non-fiction articles for outdoor magazines and published a book-length collection of them. For several years he lived on his own yacht, then relocated to Sweden where he resided until his death in 2006.

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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Dave.
3,624 reviews438 followers
October 8, 2022
Hamilton’s 1948 novel, The Steel Mirror, often feels like a precursor to his Matt Helms novels, published starting in 1960. There’s the cross-country drive with so,done on their heels. There’s the tricky espionage stuff and the distrust. Nevertheless, Steel Mirror is a bit of an odd novel where Hamilton throws in a lot of stuff, perhaps just to see what sticks.

It starts out with a meet-cute scene at a mechanic’s shop where John Emmett just got done with selling his ailing car for parts and has returned from the train station to gather his belongings. There he meets a young lady with a convertible who finally offers John a ride at least as far as Denver. Anne Nicholson though is traveling cross-country without any baggage except a doctor and nurse team tracking her across the country and ready to offer up proof of Anne’s burgeoning insanity. There’s also an all points bulletin out for her as a material witness to a murder or maybe a suspect. And, on top of it all, she has amnesia, stemming from three years in a Nazi prison where she betrayed her companions in the French resistance. She’s broken, suicidal, possibly a murderess, and half crazy.

John can’t decide whether to walk away from Anne or try to protect her by marrying her, but nothing seems to be straight about her right up to the end. There are a lot of twists and turns in this one and we the readers are often just as confused as John when it comes to Ann. This is ultimately an espionage story that takes place, not in an exotic locale, but in the States themselves.
Profile Image for Jim.
Author 7 books2,085 followers
January 8, 2015
This is Hamilton's second published novel & is better than his first Date with Darkness. Again, it is set in the US not too long after WWII & features a main character who didn't take part in the war overseas, but instead was a chemist working in the states for the war effort. The story is as twisty a plot as I've ever read; full of dubious motives, morals, & a lot of lies. That leads to plenty of mystery, suspense, & thrills.

If you're looking for heroic figures, this isn't the book for you. All the characters are quite ordinary people swept up in events over which they have little control. They're all madly scrambling to get free without facing the consequences for murder, betrayal, & more. Some are quite innocent, others not, but who is guilty of exactly what the novel is about. While the mystery is solved at the end, it's hardly a tidy finish, but it was terrific.

The story is dated in the way it treats women. The reader has to remember that during this time women were not equal to men, but were treated somewhat like overgrown children. Movies of this time showed men spanking their wives & girl friends as punishment. While that doesn't take place in this novel, but without understanding this mindset, the story won't make as much sense & the main character's character suffers the most for it.

The female lead is really interesting. Hamilton did a masterful job of bringing her along, growing her character & story. I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't read the book, but she's a real test for the main character who desires her, likes/pities/distrusts her, & really doesn't know if he should try to protect her or run.

All of the above helps explain the main character. He's not a hero, just a fairly decent, intelligent man who is caught up in events that grow in complexity & danger. His innate decency is constantly tested & he's wrestling his own baggage. Tired, scared, & unsure who to trust, he comes off as a very believable ass throughout. He's adverse to violence, but is driven to it several times. No, he's no hero, but I doubt any real person would have done any better in his position.

All in all, it was quite a ride. Now I'm on to Hamilton's third, Murder Twice Told, 2 novellas ( "The Black Cross" and "Deadfall") in one book.
Profile Image for Werner.
Author 4 books714 followers
June 19, 2011
Set about three years after World War II (the author's present; it was written in 1948, though not published until a few years later), this novel is by the same author as the Matt Helm series, and shares some characteristics with it even though it's an unrelated stand-alone. It proved to be a difficult book to rate; there were aspects of it that I really disliked, which could at times have pulled its star rating down to two or even one. But there were enough positives, for me, to keep it hovering in the three star range, and finally push it up to four.

Since this book apparently has no Goodreads description, some explanation of the premise is in order. John Emmett is a chemist who spent the war (in which his two older brothers died) working for a government agency; soon to start a civilian job, we meet him in a small Illinois town, where he's en route to a vacation in Colorado. His car has just failed him; and at the garage, he meets a well-to-do young woman, Ann Nicholson from Chicago, who's also headed west. (Their exact ages aren't given; I picture them as, respectively, early 30s and late 20s.) She agrees to give him a lift. This proves, however, not to be an unmixed blessing. During the war, Ann, who was married to a now-dead French officer, served with the French Resistance, and was captured and tortured by the Gestapo. Her experiences have supposedly left her emotionally disturbed and suicidal (but is she?), and with a gap in her memory, lost to amnesia (or is it?). She's headed for Colorado, where she hopes to meet another former prisoner who may (or may not) jog her memory back. So this trip takes on something of the quest narrative motif; and it's going to be one interesting ride, what with gradually-revealed secrets, hidden agendas, murder and Cold War espionage in the shadows. Hamilton plays his cards very close to his vest, constructing a jigsaw puzzle of a plot that's disclosed as gradually as peeling the layers of an onion, and goes in directions I didn't foresee. His writing is clearly noir-influenced, with a crisp, rapidly-flowing prose style (that and the page-turning suspense make this a really quick read --a reader with enough time could probably finish this in one long sitting, and many would probably want to!); but it lacks the hard-core noir absolute moral cynicsm. Bad language is minor (as it generally is in traditional noir; the masters of the school had higher standards than most of their modern wanna-be imitators), and there's little violence; I classified the book as mystery rather than action-adventure.

The principal weakness of the book is Emmett's character, which is where the noir influence really shows itself. Granted, he's basically cast in a heroic role, which he didn't have to assume. But having done so, he (or the author) figures that gives him carte blanche to whine and pity himself about it, treat Ann rudely and abusively at times, and generally come across as a boorish, obnoxious jerk with a lousy attitude and a boulder-size chip on the shoulder. Of course, that's the mold noir "heroes" typically come in; the authorial assumption seems to be that projecting this personality makes them look cool, macho, and tough, and that guy readers will be overcome by emulating admiration (in my case, it didn't work!), and that women readers will simply be swept off their feet with adoration --which might be the case for any with IQs below 10, but probably not any others. (It might also be that Hamilton was patterning his heroes after himself, or his ideal image of himself --Matt Helm has similar attributes-- in which case I'm glad I never met him.) IMO, consideration and compassion are hallmarks of a strong person; and striking an unarmed, unoffending woman doesn't make anybody "macho." (Helm pulls a similar stunt in Death of a Citizen; but there he had at least the excuse of honestly believing her to be an enemy spy, and wanting to enforce compliance with his orders. Emmett's action here comes across as gratuitous and unwarranted --so much so as to be jarring and actually out of character, even for him.) Clean romance in a novel or story is usually a plus for me, but it was vitiated here by the conviction that Ann could have found somebody better, and that in some ways the story sends a message to women readers to be tolerant of abuse. Ann's character, on the other hand, was a plus; she can come across as a bit flaky and stressed-out at times, but she's got reason. (With all due respect to one of my Goodreads friends, who's been slapped and understandably disapproves of it, I wasn't at all bothered by Ann slapping Emmett good and hard at one point; normally, I don't advise people to be violent, but some guys have it coming at times, and he's a poster boy for the type.)

Ultimately, I balanced out my rating at four stars, not wanting to let one single passage in a 192-page book so color my reaction as to discount all the good points there are here. Those good points include a really effective ending, and a lot of psychological insight (though the book is more plot-driven than character-driven) and even moral wisdom --which ultimately has an almost Biblical message, though Hamilton might have been startled by the comparison! :-) It's also worth noting that I'm not generally a big fan of the noir tradition or works in its orbit; I could see some readers who ARE fans rating this book even as high as five stars.
Profile Image for Benjamin Chandler.
Author 13 books32 followers
August 23, 2024
This is a pretty solid thriller.

John Emmett's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and he befriends a young lady who offers to carpool with him to his vacation destination. Before he knows it, all manner of people are approaching him, telling him that Ann Nicholson is not the innocent woman he thinks she is. She is, they say, the victim of Nazi torture, a traitor, a spy, insane, suicidal, and a murderer.

This book has a twist about every other chapter and really kept me on my toes. The final reveal was pretty satisfying and made sense of all the crazy that Emmett had to deal with on his way there. Hamilton's prose is effective and clear, with a realistic grasp of human frailty and endurance.
Profile Image for Robert.
113 reviews1 follower
September 18, 2023
This was written by the author of the Matt Helm detective series. My library does not have the Helm books so I picked up a couple other old Donald Hamilton books. 2500 pages of small hardbound, so a quick read. If memory serves, published around 1948. Somewhat reminiscent of John D. MacDonald.
Profile Image for George K..
2,742 reviews367 followers
March 14, 2015
"Ο ατσαλένιος καθρέφτης", εκδόσεις ΒΙΠΕΡ.

Έβδομο βιβλίο του Ντόναλντ Χάμιλτον που διαβάζω, πρόκειται για ένα κλασικό αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα με κάποιες ψυχροπολεμικές προεκτάσεις. Δεν ανήκει στην σειρά με ήρωα τον Αμερικανό κατάσκοπο Ματ Χελμ και φυσικά δεν φτάνει το επίπεδο των βιβλίων της συγκεκριμένης σειράς για την οποία ο Χάμιλτον είναι σχετικά γνωστός. Από άποψη πλοκής, δράσης και γραφής, πάντως, τα πήγε αρκετά καλά, σίγουρα διαβαζόταν ευχάριστα.

Η ιστορία έχει να κάνει με τον χημικό Τζον Έμετ, ο οποίος ξέμεινε από αυτοκίνητο κάπου στην Αϊόβα και σ'ένα γκαράζ αυτοκινήτων γνώρισε την Αν Νίκολσον, μια γνωριμία που θα του αλλάξει την ζωή. Η Αν Νίκολσον είναι μια στην αρχή συνηθισμένη κοπέλα αλλά αργότερα ο Έμετ μαθαίνει πολλά πράγματα για το παρελθόν της. Σε μια στάση στον δρόμο, μια νοσοκόμα και ένας ψυχίατρος πλησιάζουν τον Έμετ και του λένε ότι η Νίκολσον λόγω του εγκλεισμού της σε στρατόπεδο συγκέντρωσης των Ναζί, απέκτησε διάφορα κουσούρια, αφήστε δε που μπορεί να είναι υπεύθυνη για την κατάδοση συντρόφων της στον πόλεμο, οπότε είναι υπό παρακολούθηση. Λίγο αργότερα, ένας σερίφης θέλει να την συλλάβει, γιατί είναι μάρτυρας σ'έναν φόνο. Τελικά τι στα κομμάτια τρέχει μαζί της; Ο Έμετ θα το πάρει πατριωτικά το ζήτημα και θέλει να βγάλει μια άκρη...

Αρκετό μυστήριο, πολλά ερωτήματα και κάποιες αποκαλύψεις συνθέτουν το αστυνομικό κομμάτι της υπόθεσης, με λίγες σκηνές δράσης εδώ και 'κει για να δέσει το γλυκό. Πρόκειται για παλπ μυθιστόρημα μέτριας προς καλής ποιότητας, σίγουρα είναι ανώτερο από πολλά άλλα παρόμοια βιβλία εκείνης της εποχής. Γράφηκε το 1948, αλλά δεν δείχνει και τόσο τα χρόνια του. Η γραφή είναι καλή, αλλά μου φάνηκε λίγο διαφορετική σε σχέση με τα άλλα βιβλία του Χάμιλτον που έχω διαβάσει. Όπως και να 'χει πέρασα μια χαρά, ο Χάμιλτον σίγουρα για μένα είναι μια εγγύηση.
5,305 reviews62 followers
August 23, 2012
This thriller, only Hamilton's second published novel, is a very readable, but uneven, tale of post-WWII, cold war angst.

Thriller - This story of an insecure chemist who becomes involved with a beautiful and enigmatic woman is noteworthy for the tension wrought by a cross-country car chase as the chemist tries to uncover the reason for the mysterious woman's flight, while protecting her from her unrelenting pursuers
9 reviews
January 30, 2017
Well written book, keeps the reader guessing right up to the end. Looking forward to seeing Donald Hamilton other books available for eBooks.
Profile Image for Erich.
16 reviews
June 17, 2022
Pulp Fiction. My copy smells like a pack of Lucky Strikes and stale Brylcreem. I insist this novel will not contribute to juvenile delinquency.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews

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